The official trailhead with overnight parking is west of the entrance station. However, as noted above, roadside parking providing day hike access to Mt. Dana can be found both east and west of the entrance station.

ROL wrote:And then appreciate how lucky (or unlucky ) you are not to have Ferdinand running after you telling you not to pee up there in the headwaters of San Francisco's water supply!

Hah! BITD, as I usually did, I rolled past the Tioga station at about 3 or 4 am going about 15 - 20 mph. One time I heard a, "HEY, STOP!!!" over the Pink Floyd on my stereo. I stopped and backed up as a dark complexioned man in a ranger uniform came up out of the dark to my van. I nervously told him that I'd thought the entrance station was closed. He said that it was, but a stop sign is still a stop sign. He was right! I admitted my mistake and apologized. He waved it off and we proceeded to have a long and amazing conversation about the Sierra and our respective experiences- right there in the middle of Tioga Pass Road. Me in my van with the engine idling and him standing next to my open window.

After that, he always recognized me when I drove through going home from a trip- usually on Sunday afternoons flashing my Golden Eagle pass. I suppose I was the hippie in the blue and white van to him. We'd have a 'mini conversation' that was like, "So where'd you go this time?" "Convict Creek." "Great area! Drive safely."

It was years later when I saw his picture in a National Geographic book or magazine that I learned that his name was Ferdinand Castillo. He was a beloved and colorful ranger who 'owned' Tioga Pass for several decades that included the 70's and 80's when I was a frequent visitor.

Rolling through stop signs usually doesn't result in positive experiences in regards to law enforcement, but this time was a unique exception.

I knew somebody out there would get the reference. He got me once for the same thing. Two of my good stories are the above, as we went clanking off to the Dana Couloir, and the time Ferdinand had let an Golden Eagle Pass go without payment. He would come out at any hour he was awake, once in white boxers and undershirt around midnight, to check incoming and out going cars for the wayward permit, checking signatures and identification long before it became policy, in order to rectify his mistake. I recollect that went on for a couple of years! A very dedicated, beloved, and missed employee – even, I suspect, by those aesthetes I knew who derisively referred to him as "That damned Indian".

25 years ago, I met my partner at the entrance station for a backpacking trip to Mt. Lyell. He left his vehicle, an old VW van if I remember correctly, in the turnout just outside the park. We drove into the park in my truck so we wouldn’t have to pay the entrance fee for both vehicles.

When we got back the following evening, some old ranger guy gave my partner a ration of s**t for leaving his vehicle there. It turns out that a couple of thugs had recently parked there, waited until nobody else was around, and then terrorized and robbed the female ranger at the entrance station.

My partner pointed out that the ranger had no authority to prevent people from legally parking outside the park. The ranger eventually cooled down, and a long bull session like the one boyblue described ensued. I’ll bet the ranger was Ferdinand.

In the last 25 years, I’ve parked there for Mt Dana hikes several times, and we often leave a car there when driving in to do Cathedral Pk. Nobody has ever said a word to us since that original incident.